Page 28 of Highlander’s Curse (The Daughters of the Glen #8)
Twenty-two
I t was the stick prodding at his chest that awoke him. A stick wielded by an oddly costumed young woman.
“You alive?” Another poke accompanied her heavily accented words.
“Of course I’m alive, you silly twit.” Flynn slapped away the offending implement to roll to his side and push himself up to sit. “I’m fine. Where the bloody hell . . .”
He lay in an alleyway, tucked between two low, dirt-covered walls. Taking in his surroundings, the sights, the smells, robbed him of his ability to speak. He recognized this place. Rather, he recognized a thousand sordid places such as this one. Where was no longer his concern, so much as when .
“You dinna look to be so fine, to me.” The woman stepped closer, tossing her long, red braid over one shoulder before prodding once again.
A fiery trail of pain shot through his leg as the tip of her stick pressed against the wound on his thigh. He grabbed the stick and jerked, dragging the young woman to the ground next to him as he wrenched the implement from her hands.
Before she could draw breath to scream, he captured her gaze and forced his will into her softly yielding mind. The fear coloring her expression a moment before gave way to the blank, emotionless stare of the Compulsion’s entrancement.
“Where am I?” he demanded.
“The village of Dunkiernan.”
It had the sound of Scotland as it rolled from her tongue. The style of dress screamed Middle Ages.
But how could he have traveled through time?
Faerie Magic was the only possibility. Abigail’s Magic? He’d had no earthly idea she had this ability. He’d never felt even a touch of something like this in her blood.
“Take me to your home. I need care.”
Wordlessly, she helped him to his feet and led him out behind the buildings, across a field, and into the nearby woods.
With a backward glance at the village behind him, any lingering doubts as to when he might be evaporated. No one who’d ever lived through this bedeviled time could possibly forget it.
Beyond the tiny village, the land rose. In the distance, a castle perched atop the highest point.
“Who lives up there?” he asked, pointing behind them.
The young woman paused to turn her head, her dull eyes following the direction he indicated.
“The MacKiernan. Our laird.” Question answered, she continued forward, still taking part of his weight as he leaned on her shoulder.
MacKiernan. He might have heard the name before, but as to what he’d heard, he had no memory. He’d traveled these lands, but it had been such a very long time ago.
How is this possible?
The question battered against his consciousness over and over like some heathen warrior’s drumbeat.
When he stopped suddenly, the woman stumbled but caught her balance before falling.
If Abigail’s Magic had sent him to this hellhole, it was Abigail’s Magic that could take him back. He’d researched her too carefully not to know she didn’t belong in this time any more than he did.
She didn’t, but perhaps that so-called boyfriend of hers might?
“Where can I find Colin MacAlister?”
Again the woman’s footsteps faltered and she paused to turn, lifting her arm to point up toward the castle in the distance.
If MacAlister was there, Flynn’s ticket home would be there, too. He’d survived this cesspool of history once. He had absolutely no intention of living through it a second time.